From: M. E. Smith (mesmith@rocketmail.com)
Date: Tue Dec 30 1997 - 12:18:59 MST
A problem with the original question, which I
paraphrase:
"If we could re-make society from scratch, what rules
would we devise for society?"
is that it implies that there is only one society.
"Societies" are like "sets" in set theory; there are
as many different societies as you care to define.
Thus, I argue that a better question is:
"If we could begin a new society from scratch, what
rules would we devise for the society?"
Stated this way, it seems a more commonplace
question: people are creating new societies all of
the time.
Not that I don't understand the spirit and intention
of the original question, which I think was to spark
a discussion of what sort of rules a new libertarian
society would have. However, I do think that if we
pretend that we could ever truly recreate the
"society of all beings", we would be wasting our time.
!!!---!!!
Libertarians frequently forget that the rules of
existing societies are a product of memetic
evolution; that is, those rules were created for good
reasons. Some of the rules are obsolete, and some of
them were bad from the start, but we should keep in
mind that our ancestors were not idiots; their rules
got us to the brink of a transhuman existence. I
would no sooner throw out all the rules of society
wholesale than I would erase all of my DNA at once.
Life is complicated; deal with it.
Libertarians also frequently forget that people have
the following right:
PEOPLE HAVE THE RIGHT TO FORM AND JOIN SOCIETIES IN
WHICH CERTAIN FREEOMS ARE LIMITED, PROVIDED THAT THE
LIMITATIONS ON THEIR FREEDOM DO NOT PREVENT THEM FROM
BEING ABLE TO LEAVE THE SOCIETY AFTER JOINING IT.
When people react negatively to libertarian ideas
about society, they are frequently reacting against
what they perceive to be a threat to this right. Some
people just don't WANT to "live in" a society where
people are free to use crack cocaine, for example. If
libertarian memes are to thrive, this right must be
addressed. The way to address them ultimately
involves a sort of "set theory" of societies. (They
need to define to what extent they would "live in" a
society of crack users if the laws were changed, and
whether it would be worse than the way they already
"live in" a society that includes crack users.)
Unfortunately, it becomes pretty complicated.
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http://members.home.net/mesmith
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